Spectacular Politics: Performative Nation - Building and Religion in Modern India

Contents Preface Introduction 1 Politics nationalism and religion in modern India 2 Performative nation-building religious rituals in Indian nationalism 3 Beginnings of performative nation-building Gandhi?s method of political communication 4 Political rituals of purity in Colonial India 5 Religion as a strategy of mobilization in democratic India 6 Transformations of the public sphere religion politics and globalization 7 Terrorism and religious violence in South Asia the performative politics of fear 8 Spectacular politics power and constructed consensus some conclusions Abbreviations Bibliography IndexHow does one explain the historical processes through which abstract ideas such as the idea of a nation become a motivation for mass mobilization political re -organization and even violence on a large scale This book seeks to find answers to this question in the context of India?s modern history during its long eventful twentieth centuryStarting form the early stage of Gandhian mass mobilization after the First World War and subsequently proceeding to more recent examples of Hindu -nationalism the book analyses ?spectacular politics? as a distinct form of political communication It thereby seeks to understand not only how the idea of a nation turned into the most powerful political idea in modern India but also how political communication and mobilization work in an extremely heterogeneous and fragmented society As Indian society becomes more and more involved with globalization and internationalization many seemingly self-evident paradigms of India?s self-understanding such as its national identity democracy or secularism are once again subject to intense political controversies and social confrontationsFinally the example of religiously motivated terrorism illustrates the profound ambivalence of performative politics between inclusive even participatory effects on the one hand and destabilizing even destructive consequences of those political discourses which emphasize their form as much as their content 264 pp.…